“The Brutalist” has garnered significant praise and numerous award nominations.

The film has won awards for best drama and best drama actor at the Golden Globes, is nominated for nine BAFTA Film Awards, and is anticipated to be a strong contender in the upcoming Oscars.

However, both director Brady Corbet and lead actor Adrien Brody are facing backlash after editor Dávid Jancsó disclosed that AI technology was utilized to enhance Brody’s accent.

The film narrates the story of László Tóth (played by Brody), a fictional Hungarian-Jewish architect who emigrates to the United States after surviving the Holocaust.

In one scene, Brody’s character reads a letter to his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), entirely in Hungarian, with AI assistance employed to improve the dialogue. Jancsó utilized AI tools from the Ukrainian company Respeecher to achieve this effect.

The revelation did not sit well with audiences. “It’s not an overreaction to say this movie should lose the awards buzz it has been getting,” one commenter posted on X.

In light of the criticism, Corbet told YSL News that both actors’ performances remained “entirely their own.”

“The goal was to maintain the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or modify them, and it was carried out with the highest respect for the craft,” he stated.

In a recent interview with Red Shark News published on January 11, Jancsó noted that achieving fluency in the distinct Hungarian accent was challenging for both Brody and Jones.

“As a native Hungarian speaker, I can say it’s one of the hardest languages to pronounce correctly,” he explained. “We trained (Brody and Jones), and they did an amazing job, but we wanted to ensure it would sound perfectly natural to even native speakers.”

Brody and Jones contributed their voices to the Respeecher AI software, while Jancsó recorded his own voice to refine the intricate dialect.

“Much of their Hungarian dialogue includes parts of my voice,” Jancsó added. “We were very cautious about maintaining their performances. It’s mainly just fine-tuning certain sounds.”

He clarified that while the filmmakers could have performed the editing themselves via Pro Tools, the extensive amount of Hungarian dialogue required a more efficient method.

Corbet remarked that Brody and Jones collaborated with a dialect coach for several months to master their accents. “This was a hands-on process, handled by our sound team and Respeecher during post-production,” he said.

The AI technology was strictly used for non-English dialogues, which make up the bulk of the film, A24 confirmed in a statement to YSL News.

Jancsó also mentioned that generative AI assisted in producing “a series of architectural designs and finished structures” to fill in minute details that the budget and scheduling restrictions did not allow for shooting.

Some social media users are calling for “The Brutalist” to be disqualified from receiving additional awards at the BAFTAs or Oscars.

On X, one user labeled it a “disgrace” for utilizing AI to “not only sidestep compensating visual artists for their contributions” but also to alter actors’ accents, which is seen as a core element of acting.

These concerns surfaced following the 2023 SAF-AFTRA strike, where a key issue was studios’ use of generative AI to mimic performers’ likenesses, voices, and faces. Even though the strike has concluded, the fight for AI regulations continues.

However, “The Brutalist” is not the only film this awards season employing AI to enhance performers’ voices. Netflix’s musical “Emilia Perez,” which recently won four Golden Globes, also utilized AI to expand the vocal range of Karla Sofía Gascón by merging her singing with that of Camille, a French artist who co-wrote the film’s score. Additionally, Angelina Jolie’s biopic of Maria Callas, titled “Maria,” blends the actress’ operatic vocals with genuine recordings of the famed singer.

“Sometimes you hear only one percent of Angelina’s voice,” director Pablo Larraín expressed to IndieWire. “Occasionally, but not too frequently, you can hear sixty to seventy percent of her voice.”

In the interview with Red Shark News, Jancsó acknowledged that discussing AI is “controversial in the industry”; however, he believes this should lead to more open conversations.

“We should freely discuss the benefits AI can bring us,” he asserted. “Everything in the film involving AI has been done before; it merely accelerates the process.”

Corbet concluded his statement by affirming that “The Brutalist” was fundamentally about human effort, creativity, and cooperation. “We are incredibly proud of our team and what they have achieved here.”